Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the arcade game, in 12:15. Except, this isn't titled 'The arcade game' because it was played in arcades, and so it was just TMNT. Its not like a Honda Civic is titled "Honda Civic, The Automobile that Drives on Roads." Anyway, rant over. As this is my first non-shining and non-rpg solo submission in 4 years, it was quite a change to do 4 players at once. However, I had determined that I wanted to do this run since I learned it was playable in FBA. I needed multi-track ability, and that didn't exist in FBA. Lua to the rescue!
note, game version is World. Unfortunately, World is not yet a submission option.
- No Deaths
- Takes damage to entertain
- Plays Four Genetically-altered Humanoid Turtles
- Used Lua (I think my submissions on this board should have this auto-tagged.)
- Contains Speed/Entertainment Trade-offs.*
Making the run.
Multi-track scripts work by allowing the author to control each player individually, and then having the script play back movements. While I was able to create the movie doing this, it caused many headaches. All enemies alter their position, attacks, and activities based on all 4 turtles. Thus, modifying the movements of one turtle would cause another turtle's attack to miss, to happen too late, and various unpredictability.
Additionally, there is a bug in FBA's emulation of TMNT. If you load a state during a lag frame, the game freezes, while the music continues. The only way to continue is to restart the movie, which has special problems. Lag only happened in 3 places in the run, once in the sewer, and twice in the technodrome. However, due to this glitch, I almost gave up on the run twice.
Finally, there is a bug in FBA related to a pointer for music playing. When saving a state, this pointer is not saved. This means that anytime you create a savestate, it will only work for that session of FBA, and that playing of the movie. Restarting the movie, as in the lag-bug, eliminates the ability to use that savestate. Thus, I had to fast-forward to where I had been working in the run. I've probably fast-forwarded through big portions this entire movie 50 times, due to the lag bug. The frustration every time these bugs worked together was painful.
The Turtles
All turtles have a special move that can be activated by pressing attack and jump on the same frame. Mike, Don, and Leo all have the exact same special attack. Raphael, on the otherhand, has a unique special move. His rolling kick is the fastest form of movement, however it does 2 damage to the foot clan, unlike the other special moves which do 3. However, since I can move past the foot clan if they are off screen, I often use Raph's attack backwards to try and keep the screen moving forward. This is the reason Raph's kill count ends up way less than the other turtles. Additionally, he can catch-up to the other turtles using this attack.
Level 1: April's Burning Apartment
Things to watch for: A Foot solider getting hit by the big ball. Donatello takes a bullet from Rocksteady.
Level 2: The City Streets
Things to watch for: Hitting of street objects to kill Foot clan. A warp glitch which allows me to move towards the Foot faster. Mike playing around in the Sewer.
Level 3: The Sewer
This is the first time I encountered the awful lag glitch, right at the falling gate. You will notice the run becomes sloppy around that point, due to constant replays of the movie. I'm still happy with how it turned out, given the pain I went through. Also, Baxter Stockman only has 24 HP, and each special attack does 3 damage! Also, this part of the run introduces another annoyance, the Mouser holes. While usually I can push past Foot, if there are 4 or less trailing, at this point, the Mouser holes act like 8 Foot, and therefore I have to wait for 4-6 of them to exit the hole to move past it.
Level 4: The Car Lot
Another fun level where I get to play with the scenery. Watch for: The Car running over a bunch of Foot, Foot smacking into Signs, and explosions everywhere! Also, Bebop and Rocksteady is my favorite boss-battle of all time.
Level 5: The Freeway
Watch for: Riding on cars, and killing guys on motorcycles (way harder than it looks!)
One of the more annoying levels, as the level won't change length based on the number of kills. I attempt to keep it interesting by racking up as many kills as possible.
Level 7: Save Splinter
A pretty generic level, once again the mouser holes slow me down at the beginning. I particularly enjoyed the kills right before the 'over-grown corkscrew.' Also, the boss is the first of the 3 really annoying boss battles. Lieutenant Granitor has 48 HP, and no matter what attack is used, he takes only 1 damage.
Level 8: The Technodrome
I encountered the lag glitch twice in here, once with the moving turrets, and again at the bottom of the elevator. This made me want to scream. Additionally, General Traag had 44 HP, and same 1 HP damage rule. Krang, of course, made things worse by having 60 HP/1 dmg.
Finally, Shredder. Shredder has 192 HP and 16 HP after his helmet comes off, but each special (Raph's included) does 7 damage. This means Shredder effectively requires 30 attacks. Also, Shredder is invincible while he splits, so I try and kill as few of his clones as possible, while maintaining consistent damage on him.
Seriously? 3 damage, then 1 damage, then 7? What were the programmers thinking?!?!?
(* I tagged this run with 4 player, and noted the speed vs. entertainment trade-off, because it is possible to spawn bosses with slightly less HP by having only 1 turtle alive at the time the boss comes in. However, this would require having the run be 4-player-ish-but-only-part-of-the-time. Future versions may want to use that time saver, I chose not to for the run's quality.)
Actual Suggested Screenshot:
[dead link removed]
Thanks to:
- mz, without his work with FBA, this TAS would not exist
- adelikat, encouraging me to finish as soon as possible
- Sonikkustar, for his commentary. [dead link removed]
- FatRatKnight for the idea of using multi-track.
